A blog site for the anthology, A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009 edited by Mark Pirie; foreword by Don Neely (HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand, 2010). The blog features reviews and commentary on the book as well as New Zealand cricket poetry, reviews of New Zealand cricket books and other related material. The book's cover is by UK cricket painter Jocelyn Galsworthy.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

A Tingling Catch appears in the latest Poetry Notes Spring 2010 newsletter from PANZA (Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa). I am one of PANZA's co-organisers and members. PANZA reprinted my October blog post on J H E Schroder's New Zealand cricket poems. The newsletter can be downloaded from http://poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com/ Here's the contents:

The third issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf. Inside Spring 2010, volume 1, issue 3: Mark Pirie on J H E Schroder’s New Zealand cricket poems; Rail poems by John Maclennan; classic New Zealand poetry by Walter Charman; Niel Wright on Mark Pirie as Romantic Satirist; new publication by PANZA member: ‘A Tingling Catch’: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009: an anthology edited by Mark Pirie; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.

Friday, November 26, 2010

When I was putting together A Tingling Catch, I came across a number of poems I didn’t end up using for one reason or another. Here’s one I didn’t use. It’s by David Flynn, an American-based poet, and was published in New Zealand’s leading poetry journal, Poetry NZ– a magazineedited by poet/novelist/critic Alistair Paterson in Auckland. I felt as Flynn wasn't a New Zealand poet, New Zealand publication didn’t really qualify it for inclusion in A Tingling Catch. It’s a very enjoyable poem though and worth sharing here:

DAVID FLYNN

The man who played cricket with Wilson Pickett

Saturday night at the financial news annual ball in London,

the bureau employees in black tie and gown.

After a formal dinner,

a band ran onto the stage at The Brewery.

The men, middle aged every one,

wore gold lame jackets and sunglasses,

while two women sparkled in blue sequined dresses.

Soul revival.

The Commitments on a money gig.

Songs were Motown by the numbers:

Stop – the two women held their palms out like traffic cops –

in the name of love.

The face of Danny was glazed as he walked back and forth among the dancers in what he thought was dance, but what the employees thought was: Danny’s drunk again. His fiancé stood in one spot and danced, as it were, alone in her apartment. I had seen the foreign exchange specialist twice before: glazed in his kitchen trying to put together words to welcome me, and glazed while five of us stood during a Squeeze concert in Blackheath. A drunk. And a sad drunk at that. He didn’t smile, seemed not a Soul Man, and him only, say, twenty-five.

By contrast, the summer before I sat in a Lewisham café when
Kevin, mid-20s, happened to park his mountain bike by the door.

Whatshisname, he greeted me.

Oh hi, I said, not remembering his name either.

A week before, the banker had joined us at an Italian place in the West End. He drank three beers before the waitress delivered the pizza. Keep ’em coming. You want a beer, David wasit? By closing, the waitress sang along with him: Olay olayolayolay, and the owner stayed late to cook us special slices, just like Kevin wanted.

On the train from Charing Cross to Lewisham Station he introduced women to men, men to women – Georgia wasit?, you know Timothy here? He’s just back from Spain – until strangers stood holding poles, slow dancing to the sodden sounds of Kevin the Drunk – When a man needs a woman. He knew two tricks, but they were popular. As long as he kept moving, the man would spread joy. But at the Lewisham cafe a more workaday banker smiled in his striped suit. When I looked down his mouth, through his throat, and inside his stomach, he still laughed and drank. He was saturated with silly.

A serious expression among the freckles: I never feel so British, he said, as when I play cricket. That’s the only thing I care about. I know who I am, you see.

Then suddenly: Waitress bring me another beer. Have you met Marshall here (introducing a pimple-faced man in the booth behind us)? He’s between girlfriends you know.

By the time Kevin died he would be responsible for half the marriages in Kent.

Monday, November 22, 2010

I was really pleased when one of my favourite sports writers, Joseph Romanos, asked to interview me for A Tingling Catch.

Meeting Joseph was a great experience. I’ve admired his sports column in The Wellingtonian for a while now, reveling at his almost encyclopedic knowledge of sports history. I like how Joseph resurrects forgotten sporting names, e.g. his ‘Top 10 All Blacks Hookers’ includes Hika Reid - a nice touch!

Joseph has written many books, including an autobiography of Martin Crowe and a lovely book on New Zealand cricket families.

Here is the article Joseph wrote on A Tingling Catch, which was accompanied by a nice photo of me at the Basin Reserve by Jim Chipp:

JOSEPH ROMANOS

A tingling collection of cricket poetry

Mark Pirie compares the works in A Tingling Catch, his collection of New Zealand cricket poems, to a cricket team.

"Like any team, there are a few greats and a few making up the numbers. You need them all," he said.

Pirie has produced what is believed to be the first national collection of cricket poems of any country.

With his dual loves of cricket and poetry, he was the right person to attempt this book.

He has been a keen cricket follower since his days with the Onslow junior cricket club and at WellingtonCollege.

Pirie said he got into cricket in the 1980s when the one-day game was exploding.

"I got excited by the day-nighters, and by Lance Cairns hitting all those sixes. These days I follow test cricket more. It's more a game for purists."

Poetry has been a continuing influence in his life. He got into it, he said, through the lyrics of popular music. At university he studied arts and poetry. He became a DJ for Active 89FM and gradually turned his attention more towards poetry.

"People used to tell me I wrote good song lyrics and that I should put out a book, so I gradually got more involved in looking at lyrics in terms of poetry."

But pulling together the collection in A Tingling Catch was a massive undertaking.

"When I was younger I used to read some of Brian Turner's cricket poetry. And at university I was taught by Harry Ricketts, who was cricket-mad.

"That got me thinking it was possible to write cricket poetry. Under Harry Ricketts' influence I wrote some cricket poems as a student."

Since then his cricket poems collection has grown massively.

"I dug deeper. I'd go to the Alexander Turnbull Library and search key words, such as "cricket", "batsman" and "bowler".

"There are about 4000 New Zealand poetry books. I've probably read half of them, so I knew what to look for when I went back to them.

"Sometimes the searching got tedious. You'd go through 10 books and get one poem. But it's like walking along a stony beach and suddenly turning up a gem."

Pirie turned up at the Turnbull Library one day and asked for all the copies of New Zealand Cricketer magazine. "That got a few funny looks. But I turned each page of them and uncovered a few more. You have to do the work."

His favourites? "I like Brian Turner's sonnet about [wicketkeeper] Ken Wadsworth, who was so young when he died. It was read at his funeral."

One poem that had drawn much attention, he said, was Arnold Wall's World War I poem 'A Time Will Come'.

Pirie said cricket seemed to lend itself to poetry. "The terminology helps. All those descriptive words, such as `slips', `square leg', `covers', `sweeper', `silly mid-on' – they're a dream for a poet."

A Tingling Catch is 188 pages long, yet Pirie had to exclude many poems. And since his book was published, more have come to light.

"I've started a blog [Tingling Catch], and added new poems there."

About a dozen of Pirie's own poems are included.

One of the curiosities of the book is that there is work from many noted writers not normally associated with cricket, and occasionally not even with poetry – David McGill, Denis Glover, Elizabeth Smither, Kevin Ireland, Alistair Campbell, Peter Olds, John Clarke [aka Fred Dagg] and Kendrick Smithyman among them.

The earliest work is Samuel Butler's 'The English Cricketers', from a letter to The Press in 1864 about George Parr's touring team.

Even when Pirie had identified the poems he wanted to include, which took five years, it was another year before he gained copyright clearances. These included the front cover illustration of a cricket match at the Basin Reserve, drawn by Jocelyn Galsworthy in 2002.
﻿﻿﻿

Saturday, November 20, 2010

The following brief review of A Tingling Catch appeared in the Otago Daily Times last Saturday:

GAVIN McLEAN

Collection of cricketing poems delivers the goods

In my childhood it seemed that Dad’s transistor played undertaker in the summery garden, blaring out the sad tidings every summer in the days when New Zealand’s team was bowling fodder for the Windies, Australia, England and just about anyone else.

A Tingling Catch resurrects some of the names from 40 years ago along with some much earlier ones. Those bearded worthies include colonial politician William Pember Reeves, nationalists Thomas Bracken and David McKee Wright, and mid-20th century poet and broadcaster Arnold Wall. The more recent poets include editor Mark Pirie, Brian Turner, Harvey McQueen, Kevin Ireland, David Eggleton, Elizabeth Smither, Michael O’Leary and (naturally) Harry Ricketts.

Pirie organised his book thematically around topics such as players, matches and tours, songs, satires and parodies, watchers and listeners, and social cricket.

I particularly enjoyed Michael O’Leary’s contributions. In ‘Hey man, Wow!’ O’Leary has Jimi Hendrix batting against New Zealand. Two pages on, Bob Marley is also batting:

Is it four, is it four, is it four

That I’m scoring

Is it four, is it four, is it four

That I’m scoring

Later he has the poets out on the pitch, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde and James K. Baxter.

Many poems recall personal experiences, or tributes such as Brian Turner’s to Ken Wadsworth or Harry Ricketts’ ‘Epitaph for an old cricketer’:

Death’s sharp offcutter

has bowled you through the gate.

Old controversies are resurrected, none more infamous than the great 1981 under-arm bowling incident, with Whim Wham (Allen Curnow) poking fun at Rob Muldoon and Malcolm Fraser’s verdicts on the Chappells’ sportsmanship.

I’m no expert, but I felt that Mark Pirie has judged line and length just right. A Tingling Catch offers a crowded gear-bagful of work and is well-supported by explanatory notes and a thorough index of poems.

Friday, November 19, 2010

When I published A Tingling Catch, I knew I wouldn't find every cricket poem written in New Zealand. Here’s a great one that got away.

Gregory O’Brien told me he once wrote a cricket related poem-letter to a friend Nicholas Jones while taking his son Jack-Marcel Haddow to the Basin Reserve. It was first collected in O'Brien's 7 Letters (Animated Figure, 1997 [a limited edition of 36 copies]) and later anthologised by Andrew Johnston and Robyn Marsack in Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets (VUP, 2009).

O’Brien comments:

‘Whole forgotten days' is an informal letter-poem, the manner of which owes a lot to Baxter’s poems from his late Jerusalem period. In the early 1980s I spent a year or two in Sydney, where I started avidly reading the Australian poets Laurie Duggan and Ken Bolton...This poem is part of an ongoing correspondence with those exemplary figures (TCNZP, p. 118).

The poem appeals to me as cricket is often the backdrop for the poem and at the same time, the metaphors of cricket are behind the life-actions of the people in the poem. The humorous portrait of ‘a day at the Basin’ is expertly painted. The poem shows in profound ways how cricket affects people’s daily lives:

Saturday, November 13, 2010

In early 2003 I went along to poetry nights at the AngusInn in Lower Hutt and Selby’s Poetry Café in Porirua. On these nights a poet called John Ansell would get up to read in the Open Mic. His poems brought the house down. With a measured reading voice and superb comic timing, his nonsense rhymes struck an immediate chord with listeners. Very soon he was the guest poet himself and people were asking for copies of his poems.

I was delighted when John later collected his rhymes in book form. His book, I Think the Clouds Are Cotton Wool, came out near the end of that year in November 2003. I even bought extra copies of it to give to friends at Christmas time.

The book includes a great section called ‘Thoughts on Sports’ with witty observations on cricket and rugby. The cricket poems, which were originally written as radio ads, were of particular interest to me, and I included John in A Tingling Catch. ‘Cricket Initials’ (John's contribution to A Tingling Catch) was read by John at the launch of the book at the Basin Long Room. It has a neat use of the stumps as an image in the poem.

‘Cricket Initials’ was one of 16 radio ads made in 1992 during Shell’s sponsorship of cricket on Radio New Zealand. The voice John cast was Jim Hopkins, so they called the series Hopkins’ Half Minute. Each of the poem-ads mentioned the sponsor Shell with some improvisation by Jim Hopkins in the studio.

Here’s the other two cricket-related poem-ads that John wrote:

JOHN ANSELL

Cricket is a Funny Game

Cricket is a funny game,

For who'd believe a tale

Where a pointy stick is called a stump,

And a stumpy one, a bail?

And it gets much more confusing, folks,

For nowhere but in cricket

Could a set of sticks

And a grassy strip

Both be called a wicket.

These wickets of the greener kind

Are also known as pitches,

Which is also what the ball does

When it bounces on its stitches.

So what's it all about folks?

And where's this poem headed?

And why is it that the last three words

Are Shell Ultra Unleaded?

Cricket is for the Birds

A cricket is a species of insect, much enjoyed by birds. Which suggests that cricket is for the birds. And it is.

I mean, where else can a Crowe go in for a bat and get out for a duck – often given out by an umpire called Dickie Bird?

Now of course, before a Dickie Bird can become an umpire, it must first come out of its Shell. Which is what you should be coming out of if you’ve just been buying petrol.

A petrel is another kind of dickie bird, but it doesn't give a toss about cricket. So I won’t mention it.

Author's Note: An ornithological (not to mention apoetical) collaboration, where I supplied the Crowe, the bat and the duck, Jim Hopkins weighed in with the Dickie Bird, the petrol and the petrel, and Shell brought the money.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Noeline Gannaway sent me her poetry book, Nicolo's World (Craig Printing Co. Ltd: Invercargill, 1978). It contains a children's poem about a cat, Nicolo, who likes watching cricket. The book is beautifully illustrated by artist Sheila Natusch. Here's a scan of the poem with Sheila's illustration:

Monday, November 8, 2010

Helen Rickerby posted a blog comment on A Tingling Catch. Helen, a publisher herself with Seraph Press, was kind enough to look after the bookselling for me at the launch in the Basin Long Room. Here's the link to her post discussing Scott Kendrick's poem 'Catches I Have Dropped':http://wingedink.blogspot.com/2010/11/tuesday-poem-catches-i-have-dropped-by.html
Look out for Helen's new Seraph Press title: Crumple by well known writer Vivienne Plumb.
Thanks Helen

Earlier I wrote an article on Māori cricket in New Zealand. In addition to that article I’d like to share with you a cricket poem written in Māori. There can’t be many cricket poems in Māori (if any) so Michael’s O'Leary's poem is innovative and highly original.

It’s from O’Leary’s 1987 cricket novel Out of It (ESAW: Auckland). New Zealand is playing Out of It in a One-Day match on Eden Park, Auckland, 1980s. The poem is a monologue by the Out of It captain and hero of the match, the famous chief Te Rauparaha. (Titokuwaru, a Māori warrior who became a legend for his guerrilla resistance in the Land Wars of the 1860s, also gets a mention in the novel, however, he didn’t make the Out of It starting XI on the day.) It’s fiction so I guess these two didn’t play cricket but it would be nice to think that they had picked up cricket bats. Te Rauparaha features as a dashing, attacking batsman in Michael’s novel. I presume Titokuwaru would be similarly aggressive as a batsman.

Here’s the poem in Māori, a monologue lament after Te Rauparaha is finally dismissed for a blistering 50, including a number of sixes hit off Sir Richard Hadlee:

Te Rauparaha’s Lament as an Opening Batsman

Kei te anake au

Kei te mokemoke au

Kore rawa hui atu mokemoke

me kia au puritia koe

Taua kia haere ra muringa he haerenga

e hoki ki whare kirikiti

Anei taku momoe mongamonga

i aro i te mana ma kaupapa

Kei ahau he poke

i roto i taku manawa a wairua

Kei te anake au, no reira

Kei te mokemoke au

Kore rawa hui atu mokemoke

Kei te whakama ahau

me kia au puritia koe

e taku taonga porangi, e!

Aue, aue, awatu ...

When I asked Michael for a translation, he kindly sent me the following English version:

Te Rauparaha’s Lament as an Opening Batsman

I am lonely

I am alone

Never more lonely

than when I held you

On the long journey

back to the Pavilion

Again my dreams shatter

with the illusion of reality

There is a hole, a sadness

in my heart and spirit

I am lonely, what is more

I am alone

Never more lonely

Never more ashamed

than when I held you

my crazy treasure cricket bat

how lamentable …

Thanks Michael.

See also my related blog posts: ‘Māori cricket in New Zealand’ and ‘Michael O’Leary’s cricket novel to be reprinted’.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

John R Reid was one of New Zealand's great cricketers. From 1949-65, he played and for a time captained and defined New Zealand Test cricket. His stats (3428 Test runs at 33.28 and 85 Test wickets at 33.35) may not amount to that of a great cricketer but ‘legacies and cold stats’ don’t always tell the truth of a player’s worth.

As an attacking batsman, Reid held a world record for hitting 15 6s while batting for Wellington against Northern Districts. Reid made 296 that day. He might have fitted in well with current 20/20 format.

A good article about Reid’s playing career is on ESPN Cricinfo: ‘Hit Machine’ by John Mehaffy. The link is

I was thinking about Reid again recently when I picked up a copy of his autobiography, Sword of Willow (1962), at the Waikanae Book Fair. It’s still a good read and the quintessential Reid book to own. The back cover includes photos of his leg side batting technique where he used to play many of his attacking shots.

﻿﻿I also wrote a poem mentioning the book when I returned from the fair. Reid’s Sword of Willow got me thinking of my own bat, sitting in its cover awaiting use. Reading it now, Reid's book certainly gives that air of a love lost as it describes in detail some of the great days in New Zealand cricket.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Today I bought a copy of Kathryn Gilkison’s poetry book, Dear Shelley, written in memory of her daughter Shelley Mather (also the niece of New Zealand poet Bernadette Hall) who died in the London bombings of July 7, 2005. I hadn't come across the collection before but it's of interest to cricket people.

The book contains a poem called ‘Cricket Gang’ and on the back of the book is a photo of her daughter Shelley in a New Zealand cricket shirt. Shelley played indoor cricket and was a cricket lover. The poem states that her cricket team honoured her with ‘a cricket bat guard of honour’ at her funeral (St Mathew-in-the-City, Auckland, July 30, 2005).

Kathryn’s book and the story of her daughter’s life in which cricket played an integral part moved me. My own father and sister were in London the day of the bombings and were unhurt. My heart goes out to Shelley’s family and friends. I’d like to share Kathryn’s poem for Shelley in honour of a fellow cricketer’s life:

Little has been known about Māori cricket teams in New Zealand. In Australia, however, a famous Aboriginal team, the ‘All Blacks’, toured England in the 1860s. A poem about them appeared in Leslie Frewin’s The Poetry of Cricket anthology (1964) and the scorecards for their matches are on the English Cricket Archive website (http://cricketarchive.com/). Here’s the anonymous poem about the ‘All Blacks’:

ANON

Aboriginal Cricketers of 1868 – The “All Blacks”

To Britain they came from the land of the South

As strangers for honour and glory,

And now as true heroes intrepid and bold

Will their names be recorded in story.

For not with the sword did they covet renown,

The battle they fought was at cricket,

In lieu of grim weapons of warfare they strove

With the bat and the ball at the wicket.

A further poem on the ‘All Blacks’ tour is by Rikki Shields and is anthologised in ‘A Breathless Hush’: The MCC Anthology of Cricket Verse (2004). Shields' poem, ‘The Last Over’, is written in memory of King Cole, ‘an Aboriginal cricketer who died on 24 June 1868’. It also names the other players in the team: ‘SUGAR, NEDDY, JELLICO, COUSINS, MULLAGH, BULLOCKY, TARPOT, SUNDOWN, OFFICER, PETER and CAPTAIN.’

Was there anything similar in New Zealand? I don’t think so - but recently I came across a photo of a Māori cricket team (Prefects Cricket XI, Te Aute College, Hawke’s Bay, 1880). It was published on the cover of the New Zealand Cricket Museum Newsletter, Summer/Autumn Newsletter 2009-10, by curator David Mealing. David tells me he discovered the photo in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (Ref No. ½-061582-F).

﻿

Prefects Cricket XI, Te Aute College, Hawke's Bay, 1880

﻿

Further to this, in 2009 I wrote and published a poem in Landfall 219 about Māori cricket. The poem compares New Zealand to other countries where cricket flourished and notes that the sport was never as popular with Māori in New Zealand to the same extent as it was in India and elsewhere. Here’s the Landfall poem of mine:

The discovery of the Te Aute College photo by David suggests there were Māori cricket teams active in New Zealand schools, if not at a national level. The full extent of Māori participation remains unknown but Adam Parore, the most well known Māori cricket player, played Test cricket for New Zealand. Parore, one of our best wicket keepers, remains the first Māori cricketer to make a Test hundred as poet Michael O’Leary has observed: “PARORE / Awha, nearly made a century, tipuna of Adam, first Māori to do so’.

About Me

Mark Pirie is an internationally published New Zealand poet, anthologist, literary critic, writer and publisher with a special interest in cricket poetry. In 2010 he edited and published 'A Tingling Catch': A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009. Mark's previous anthology of New Zealand Science Fiction poetry, co-edited with Tim Jones and published by IP, Brisbane, won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work 2010. His publishing company is HeadworX Publishers: http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz As a publisher and author he has over 100 titles listed in the National Library of New Zealand. His website is www.markpirie.com His other interests are popular music. In 2010 he helped co-organise the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa (PANZA). Web site: http://poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com